New TCU Logo Goes the Way of the Horned Frog

To hear old timers talk, rural North Texas was once covered with the horned frog or horny toad, which is actually a lizard. The encroachment of civilization and disappearing habitat have made them all but disappear. This week it appears they’ve even disappeared from their most visible location, the TCU logo.

New TCU Logo Sans Frog

Officials announced that the official logo will be the arched TCU letters shown here. The horned frog will no longer appear underneath the arched lettering, as it is now considered a secondary mark. Sure, there will still be the horned frog mascots and slogans–just not in conjunction with the arched TCU lettering. Another change was to slightly modify the shade of purple to make it more vibrant, since the original shade sometimes showed up as blue during televised games. And fortunately for the Frogs, there have been lots of televised games lately!

According to the university’s Associate A.D. for External Operations Scott Kull, “This process has been going on for over a year now and in conjunction with Nike,” Kull said. “We were looking at revamping our colors, our uniforms and all of that. This was just a process of doing that. We just wanted to keep the tradition, that clean-classy tradition of the arched-TCU.”

Horned Frog to Disappear from TCU logo

I’ve got to agree that the old horned frog was anything but clean and classy. But a jazzed up frog design have some appeal, don’t you think? In fact, according to NikeBlog.com, it’s said that part of the original plan was to redesign the frog to a newer, more graphic mascot design as shown on the school t-shirts below. But apparently, the new frog design was scrapped, and the jazzed up TCU screen-printed t-shirts are not being sold.

Will the athletic department be able to follow the new rules? The football helmets with the frog have brought them good luck. Its said they haven’t lost a game while wearing the helmets with the frog. And university officials have no plans to discontinue the helmets. Apparently, good luck and superstition always trumps logo policy.